Paul was winning with the robot arm. Making the fingers move was the final step. He was proudly showing MacGyver how it could pick up a hammer when he got a message from doctor Tshene. Tshene had a close friend who worked servicing big ships. His friend told him he had an old reactor that was just about stuffed. It was only running at running at 9%. Far too low to power a big ship and too bulky for a small one.
After a few emails back and forth with Tshenes friend to check the size of the unit and the power room on the Albatross with Amataya, they were in business. MacGyver even agreed to drop Paul and the vacuum cleaner to the Albatross then go to pick up the plasma unit for them.
“This is like the real MacGyver, fixing things with nothing special” he said proudly.
“You are like the real MacGyver,” said Paul. He had only watched one episode of the show but got the idea. He loved to see his boss feel important.
That evening Shige fabricated the pieces that the vacuum cleaner needed while MacGyver took his small hovertruck to pick up the plasma unit. Shige was stuck trying to work out how to fix the body together around the compactor. It generated a huge amount of force while it operated. MacGyver arrived back from the pickup with a tube of glue used to hold panels together on spaceships.
“It's set using an electrical and impossible to undo. Perfect for vacuum compactor. Stronger than duct tape, good for hole in you ship too” MacGyver said approvingly.
It only took a moment from there to glue the pieces together and they had a working vacuum. MacGyver was pleased with the result patting Shige on the back.
“Good, Good, not pretty but strong, like you humans” He cracked up at his joke
. “You can come and work at me” he said enthusiastically to Shige.
“Sorry I have another job, but I will help whenever I can,” said Shige.
“Good” said MacGyver smiling.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Paul found some heavy gauge wires from the main reactor that hadn't been blasted and used them to rigg their recycled reactor to the power outlet. It took up most of the space in the power generation room, but it was worth it. Amataya yelled out from the cockpit.
“The lights are on and all sorts of things that are flashing”.
“Good, what sort of things?” yelled Paul.
“I don't know none of it's in English” Amataya yelled back.
MacGyver saved the day using a translation program on his tablet, it showed the writing in his language, then he told them what it was. The voice translators finished the Job. Soon the control panel was covered with hurriedly scribbled labels stuck on with duct tape.
They found that at least some of the basic functions worked while others, like the atmosphere generators showed critical failure on their screens. The floor in the loading bay closed and opened and the loading ramp nearly closed itself. Fortunately, most of the lights around the ship and the appliances in the kitchen seemed to work.
By the following afternoon they had moved all of their possessions from the pods. The rooms came up well with a clean They stole the mattresses and bedding from the pods hoping no one would care. There was a couple of great secondhand stores on the Red Scar but their budget meant that they could only get a few basic items.
Over the next few earth weeks, the Albatross took shape. One of Craig's friends said he knew of a crashed BETA24X7 a few clicks out from the station. It had been stripped for parts but Shige and Amataya managed to cut enough sections from it to cover the holes in the ship using a plasma gun they borrowed from MacGyver.
While they had a lifter at the Albatross to affix the panels Amataya painted a simple Samoan design down the side of the ship alongside the stripes.
“Now that looks like a real ship,” she said proud of her work.
Amataya’s due date was rapidly approaching. She reluctantly left her job at Sues’ insistence.
“Just because I'm too pregnant do the safety belt up doesn't mean it isn't safe.” She insisted.
Apparently, it wasn’t a good enough reason. Ruth and Sue asked everyone if they could move into the top rooms which had now been opened and cleaned so they could be nearby for the baby as well as the fact that they just wanted to. Everyone was excited about the idea. Their wee family grew from three to five. And then six as Trice moved into one of the lower story rooms now that they had been sealed and the wall roughly rebuilt with bits cut from the old ship.
At the dinner to celebrate Trice's arrival Paul noted happily how normal it seemed to live in a stationary spaceship with two mothers, a brother and two sisters, one of them alien and just about all of them from different races.